King James Bible Bash

23rd April 2011, 7pm

Commissioned byLondon Word Festival

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Inspired by our Monday School project, London Word Festival commissioned a King James Bible based cabaret in three acts. And what a great night we all had, culminating in spontaneous renditions of “for he’s a jolly good Bible” and “Happy Birthday” from the audience, inspired by a wonderful Bible Cake.

To warm things up, by way of a Bible overview Marcus Orlandi performed ‘3:16’, a look at the most quoted Bible verse, John 3:16 and how it got hi-jacked by WWF villian Austin 3:16!

Creation

The narrative then burst into life with a Live Print Production Line accompanied by Kerry Yong on Casio with Terry Riley’s A Rainbow in Curved Air.

The production line was peopled by Sam Meech, Kevin Helas, Rosalind Holmes Duffy, Margaux Carpentier, James Wilkes (and Sal), Sarah Jane Barnes, and Phillipe Nash; all competition winners who attended a workshop in our studio to make a publication for the occasion (entitled ‘Void’) based on the seven days of creation.

Fall

The Henningham Family Press then dipped into our Monday School syllabus, taking a look through geodesic domed spectacles (literally) at the Garden of Eden with Buckminster Fuller.

We asked ‘Has Man a Function in Universe?’ and introduced his brilliant short film ‘Modeling Universe‘.

Nathan Jones (Mercy) and Sam Meech presented bewitching poetry and film set to music by Carl Brown (Wave Machines)!

They dug deep in the Northwest film archives to present their contemporary setting of the Noah’s Ark story. We published ‘Noah’s Ark’ as a book in conjunction with this event.

Resurrection

Kerry Yong provided a sudden trumpet call with a Casio keyboard version of Messiean’s ‘Quartet for the End of Time‘ (Cover Me Casio). Then Kerri Meehan & Sophie Von Cundale performed ‘The Last Word’, a bizarre live magazine TV show. New material for the night, building upon their previous appearances at Frieze and the South London Gallery, was woven around the fact that paramedics mentally recite the Bee Gees ‘Staying Alive’ during resuscitation attempts. The evening then dissolved into the Disco of the Sheep and Goats. One turntable reserved for the best songs and another set aside for the worst songs of all time.

It’s the 400th anniversary of the King James translation of the Bible, and, it being Easter weekend and all, perhaps this is the best time of the year to get a bit Biblical, and mark the occasion. Taking inspiration from the stories at the start of the book – creation and Noah’s Ark – London Word Festival are presenting an eclectic mix of music, art, literature and film in response to this great, influential, controversial and ancient text. Running right through to the apocalyptic imagery of Revelation at the end, with a detour comparing John 3:16 with Austin 3:16, there’ll be a geodesic domes, a man-powered print production line, a score by Carl Brown of the Wave Machines, and Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time on casio. You’ll not see anything like this at your local church this Sunday.